The U.S. State Dept.
is coordinating the deployment of a nationwide electronic-surveillance system
in Mexico, a project that will enable the Agencia Federal de Investigaciones
(AFI) to intercept phone conversations and online messages from every telecommunications
network within Mexico.

According to documents obtained via the Federal Business
Opportunities contracting database, this new system will enable the mass
collection and analysis of communications and information, thereby helping
to prevent “acts of major federal crimes in Mexico that include narcotics
trafficking and terrorism.” The “statement of work” guiding
this planning stage of this project makes clear that all U.S. law enforcement
and intelligence agencies are slated to become indirect beneficiaries of
this monitoring system.
The motivation behind the communications-intercept system is to strengthen
the ability of both governments “to disseminate timely and accurate”
information to one another’s “federal, state, local, private,
and international partners,” it says. “Provision of this data
will ensure that the Mexican Government will have information to expeditiously
thwart and confront criminal and terrorist activity.”

The project involves construction of a surveillance
command center within AFI’s headquarters, which eventually will be
linked to phone company and Internet service provider (ISP) networks nationwide.
Government technicians staffing the center will be capable of programming
and tapping into targeted phone numbers without the prior assistance of
phone service providers or ISPs, the documents show. The techs also will
be able to “transfer monitored calls made to cellular or fixed phones,
to an agent located on the field,” it says.

The system will have a minimum 25,000-hour capacity
to store audio and data transmissions seized by Mexican authorities, according
to the documents. The plan envisions that 30 staffers will be on hand at
any time for real-time monitoring of various communications ranging from
phone calls and faxes, to e-mails and online chats by the respective customers
of Telmex, Telcel, Nextel, Telefonica, Unefon, Isuacel, and Prodigy.

While the system would allow those staffers to “collect,
monitor and record” a total of 60 calls at once, it also would have
access to a database capable of targeting up to 8 million communication
“sessions” for future reference. A data bank of seized conversations
would make it possible to “compare, recognize and identify”
voices when necessary.

Another feature of the planned surveillance center
will be its ability to pinpoint the location of targeted cell phone users
automatically and in real time, as it will be linked to “plans and
maps of the entire Mexican Republic,” the work statement says: “The
system will provide tracking information and tools for searching and mapping
to law enforcement and intelligence organizations.”

The AFI will own and operate the system once it is
completed. However, initially the agency will share oversight of construction
and technical testing with the U.S. Embassy Mexico Narcotics Affairs Section
and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

Equipment purchased for the project must originate
from the U.S. and meet the technical standards of the “digital wiretap”
law formally known as the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act (CALEA) of 1994, which required U.S. communications providers to remove
specific, technical impediments to electronic surveillance.

Although the U.S. Congress had appropriated $500 million
to reimburse industry for meeting those requirements, the full implementation
of CALEA was drawn out nearly a decade due to legal challenges from industry
and privacy groups. The current effort in Mexico is more modest, with an
expected cost of $1 million a year over a four-year period.

Get Alex Jones
and Paul Joseph Watson's books, ALL Alex's documentary films, films
by other authors, audio interviews and special reports. Sign up at Prison
Planet.tv - CLICK
HERE.